15 best money management tips from experts (for expensive city living)

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read the disclosure page for more info.

This is an Expert Personal Finance Roundup to help millennials living in expensive cities with money management. Below, 15 personal finance leaders share with us: 15 money management tips, 13 money app recommendations, and 20 of their favorite finance bloggers. I’m so stoked to share this with you!

Do you live in an expensive city?

Is it a challenge to pay for housing, living expenses, and city adventures?

Feel like you’re not saving enough to ever reach financial independence?

You are not alone.

Many millennials are in the same situation, especially those that live in cities. They live paycheck to paycheck, and have little left over to get ahead.

Urban centers are booming and costs are increasing worldwide. How are we going to pay for it?

Welcome to the City for Millennials! We discuss ways to Do More, Make More, and Spend Less in expensive cities. We want everyone to have adventures in their city, all while preparing for financial independence.

But how?

In this post, I rounded up 15 of my favorite personal finance experts to find out what they recommend for millennials to get ahead in expensive cities. If you live in an expensive city, this post will provide you with the following:

• 15 extremely important money management tips,
• 13 helpful money apps,
• List of 20 finance bloggers that the experts follow.

I’m so excited to share these money saving tactics and mindset shifts with everyone! Especially since they came from the pros! I am so grateful to this panel of personal finance leaders, and amazed at the solutions they provided.

This is a long-ish post, I know. But it is worth the read. The Table of Contents below allows you to skip to the section that interests you the most.

If you want to read the full responses from each expert, you can do so in the last section called “Personal Finance Expert Roundup Responses (IN FULL)”

Just click on the finance blogger within the table of contents to see their individual input. Share the love and continue to their page after reading this post for more personal finance tips.

If you like this content, feel free to join my newsletter. Each week you will receive tips to Do More, Make More, and Spend Less in expensive cities.

Check out the Table of Contents below to find the best money management tips, favorite money apps, and incredible finance blogs to follow.

Questions For The Personal Finance Experts

This is such an awesome opportunity to hear from 15 pros! I sent out the following three questions to leaders of the personal finance community:

1. What are your best money management tips to help millennials save in expensive cities?
2. What is your favorite money app (saving, tracking, or investing) and why?
3. What is your favorite blog to read these days?

Remember, you can read their full response in the last section below.

Meet The Experts

1. AcceleratedFI

Jim from AcceleratedFI focuses on the side hustle movement. Did you know that many millennials have a side hustle to bring in extra cash to save for their future? Those living in expensive cities tend to hustle harder to help pay for the increased cost of living. AcceleratedFI’s mission is to help you side hustle your way to financial independence. 

RELATED POST: Are you part of the Lost Millennial Generation? 

2. DiverseFI

Doc G of DiverseFI is awesome and encourages his community to rethink their relationship with money. He wrote a post called the “Once I Have Syndrome” that I connected with. It made me appreciate what I do have…already. A doctor by profession, Doc G rocked the medical world and owned his own practice. He reached financial independence early in life and now he writes about the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) movement.

3. Dollars and Sense LA

Ryan from Dollars and Sense LA loves looking at spreadsheets. Well, I hope so since he’s a data analyst for BuzzFeed. In his spare time he writes this personal finance blog to help millennials living in Los Angeles. What I love about Ryan’s blog is he tailors his content for his audience type. His avatars are: 1) #young&free (single under 30); 2) #lonewolf (single over 30); 3) #young&hitched (dual-income under 30); and 4) #hustlecouple (dual-income over 30).

RELATED POST: Are you a millennial living in an expensive city?

4. Frugal Rules

John from Frugal Rules was so kind when communicating about this personal finance roundup. He had family over for the long holiday weekend and still managed to send over his responses. What’s great about Frugal Rules is that it is focused on helping younger generations with their finances. That includes our millennial generation! John is married with children, a veteran of the financial services industry, and committed to helping our generation manage money. Thank you John!

5. Get Rich Slowly

J.D. from Get Rich Slowly is a fan favorite and extremely well respected in the personal finance blogging world. Get Rich Slowly connects with so many people, in part due to it’s down to earth attitude and approach to finance/life. J.D. is extremely wise and thoughtful. Get Rich Slowly provides money management tips that are tangible, while offering enriching, thought provoking concepts that help you look internally and make behavioral changes.

Check out J.D.’s responses in the last section below. You do not want to miss these recommendations!

6. Go Curry Cracker

Ever dream of retiring early and traveling the world? Jeremy, Winnie, and family from Go Curry Cracker did just that. They are my heros! I lived and worked in the middle east for 3 years during my mid 20s and got a taste of the nomad life. Additionally, I learned that for Americans, when you are out of the country for 330 days of a calendar year, you may be able eligible for the foreign earned income exclusion. Go Curry Cracker offers incredible financial/traveling advice and an alternate lifestyle to admire.

RELATED POST: 3 Reasons why living abroad helped my financial position and worldview 

7. Marriage Kids and Money

Marriage Kids and Money has a motto that I can get behind- It’s time to strengthen your family tree and live financially free. While I don’t have kids (yet), Andy offers great wisdom to topics that I connect with: Save Money, Make Money, Crush Debt, Pay Off Mortgage, Strengthen Marriage, and raise Money (Smart Kids).

8. Making Sense of Cents

I’ve been learning from Michelle of Making Sense of Cents for a while now. Currently, she is living on catamaran, enjoying sunsets and sea-breeze while writing solid financial tips for her community. Similarly, Michelle also purchased a home in her early 20s and rented out rooms to cover the mortgage and earn free equity. This strategy helped me focus on paying back my student loans which had a higher interest rate than the home loan.

If you haven’t joined Michelle’s newsletter yet, I strongly recommend it. Even the most successful personal finance pro will gain a few money management tips from Making Sense of Cents. Check out the last section below to read Michelle’s full response and link to her site.

RELATED POST: How I paid off $80K of student loans in 3 years

9. Money Crashers

Money Crashers strives to educate people on various aspects of personal finance including: credit and debt, investing, education, real estate, insurance, spending, and more. David Wingles, personal finance guru, provided these responses, and they are extremely helpful! Check them out below!

10. Pennies To Wealth

Dj and Dannie from Pennies to Wealth are a married couple in their 20s who aggressively paid off $121K in debt. They provide their community with tangible ways to save money and hold yourself accountable. Budgeting is tough, especially since the majority of Americans are not offered a simple personal finance course in high school.

RELATED POST: Can you answer these simple money questions?

11. Saving Advice

Saving Advice is a personal finance website that teaches how to invest, save money, and pay down debt. This community was built around the notion that saving money is good. Amanda, from District Media Finance and co-content writer for Saving Advice offers practical tips that everyone can do and accomplish.

RELATED POST: 5 Mistakes millennials make in expensive cities

12. The Financial Journey Man

The Financial Journeyman is a personal finance blogthat follows Dave’s journey toward financial independence and the goal of reaching early retirement. He writes about: “Saving money, investing, being frugal, travel, finding good deals when you do spendmoney, avoiding debt, and having a great time along the journey”. So basically, everything money management related! Thanks for the money management tips Dave!

13. Side Hustle Nation

Nick from Side Hustle Nation is another hero of mine. He inspires my entrepreneur spirit. Nick is the host of the Side Hustle Show, which is a Best Business Podcast Nominated show. We can all learn something from the actionable lessons Nick offers his community.

Nick once took cold showers for 500 days straight which really highlights his goal-oriented motivation and determination!

RELATED POST: 8 steps to consider when planning a side hustle

14. Wallet Hacks

Jim of Wallet Hacks was the first personal finance expert to offer responses for this roundup. He spent some time living in New York City, and knows the struggles of expensive cities first hand. Jim is a motivated thirty-something and father of two. He has been featured in the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Entrepreneur, and Marketplace Money. Check out Wallet Hacks for money hacks, shortcuts, & life’s cheat codes!

15. Your Money Geek

Michael, aka Your Money Geek, focuses on retirement planning and is a professional financial advisor. Your Money Geek helps hard working people just like you get the retirement they so desperately deserve. I appreciate Michael’s sense of humor, and hobby recommendations. Check his recommendations in section 6 below!

RELATED POST: Finance Literacy 101: Master these 10 money principles in 10 minutes

…ok, are you ready for the expert recommendations?!

Money Management Tips From The Experts

1. Tradeoffs

If you living an an expensive city, you are going to have to make some tradeoffs. You can’t have everything, but you can enjoy some of the good things the city life has to offer.

This money management tip is all about changing your mindset. The experts agree that city living is challenging. Especially for millennials. The cost of living is high and millennials suffer from massive student loan debt. Millennials also have a sense of adventure and lifestyle that may not be realistic when living in expensive cities.

Take a step back. Look at your budget. Assess your needs versus your wants. Make a plan that first satisfies your needs, then develop strategies to have some of your wants. Sometimes it helps to visualize your budget/cash flow to do this. Check out the recommended budgeting apps in the section below.

Jim from Wallet Hacks made his lunch everyday while living in Manhattan so he could enjoy Friday night happy hours with friends.

He decided that going out with friends on Friday nights was more important than going out to lunch with coworkers. You can’t have it all, but if you pick and choose, you can still enjoy an expensive city without going into debt or forgoing your retirement.

It’s all about tradeoffs!

RELATED POST: I save $500 each month with this small lifestyle tradeoff.

2. Rethink your housing needs

J.D. from Get Rich Slowly stated it best. YOUR HOUSING COSTS ARE THE SINGLE BIGGEST DRAG ON YOUR BUDGET. They are for the average American, anyhow. And if you’re living in an expensive city, this probably all the more true.

If you’re in a place with a high cost of living and you don’t have to be, consider moving to out of the city. For example, if you can work remotely, it will benefit you in the long run to live in a place where housing costs are less.

Sometimes people decide to live in the city because they work there. If that’s the case, then it may be important to rethink your housing needs versus wants. My friend Mark lives in an amazing penthouse apartment with views of the entire San Francisco Bay. But is it really worth $6,500/month? I know first hand that you can get incredible views of the Bay and City from many places that are free. Take a hike up to Twin Peaks! Live within your means.

There are plenty of people who love the energy of a city, and would never consider living anywhere else. I get it!  If you’re one of them, and you’re also somebody who wants to get ahead financially, then you’re going to have to make some sacrifices.

3. Live with roommates, housemates, or family

Building off of the expert advice above, a sure way to reduce spending while living in an expensive city is to share housing costs. I know, I know, you did the roommate thing in college, but if you want to get serious about your financial independence, you need to make tradeoffs.

It doesn’t have to be forever, but you might need to deliberately live like a student again for a few years (maybe even a decade) so that you can maintain a big gap between what you earn and what you spend. 

Furthermore, splitting a slightly bigger apartment with at least one other person is usually cheaper than having a one bedroom or a studio apartment just for yourself.

It seems like so many people are anti-roommate, but it can be a great way to significantly cut back on your living expenses! 

Lastly, if your family is willing to let you crash for free, staying with them while saving up for a down payment (or another investment) might be an amazing plan. I have a buddy who graduated with a civil engineering degree and MBA. He lived at home while working in Los Angeles for 3 years and paid off all his student debt and saved enough towards a downpayment on an investment property.

4. Rent control

Rent controlled apartments in expensive cities exist, but are hard to find. A rent controlled district is an area within a city where the government controls and regulates the amount charged for rented housing. Basically, it means your rent will not increase as much annually.

My first apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area was rent controlled. When a new tenant arrives, an owner will likely increase the unit up to market rate. Once rented, future rent increases will be controlled by the government.

That means if you stay in a rent control apartment for multiple years, you will experience minimal rent increases. There was a tenant next to me who was paying half as much as me per month since she had been there since the 1990s.

If you are lucky enough to find a rent controlled apartment, hold on to it. I gave mine up after two years. Bad decision!

5. Invest in a Duplex:

If you live in an expensive city, and are looking to build equity through a home purchase, while also bringing in rental income, consider buying a duplex or multi unit building.

I have a friend who took advantage of a FHA mortgage loan and bought a 4-unit building in Oakland, CA with only a 3.5% downpayment. He rents out 3 units and covers his entire mortgage payment. This means he is building equity and living for free.

Let’s do the numbers. 3.5% downpayment on a $1.5 million multi-unit home is only $52,500. Mortgage payments would be around $8,000/month (or $2,600/unit if you rent out 3 of theunits). $2,600/unit is a reasonable price for the San Francisco Bay Area.

With dedication and discipline, it is certainly possible to save up enough money to make this option become a reality.

Of course, every expensive city is different. That said, a common trend in cities is population growth…and the housing supply is limited. 

I am personally looking into this option. The real estate market in the San Francisco Bay Area has been hot for years, and does not show any signs of slowing anytime soon. Only time will tell.

6. Proximity to downtown  

A great way for millennials to save money when living in an expensive city is to rethink housing location. To begin with, avoid downtown. That’s where you’ll pay the most in rent or mortgage. 

Can you move a little farther away from the most expensive part of the downtown area? Does public transit reach less expensive areas of your city? Would you consider biking to work instead of walking?

7. Transportation

The second greatest cost in expensive cities is transportation. Get rid of your car! Get to know your bike!

Did you know that the average vehicle is driven only 4% of the time, and parked the other 96%? John Zimmer, the cofounder of Lyft, wrote an amazing article on Medium about the evolution of transportation. Check it out!

If you live in a city, you do not need to own a car. There are so many transportation options out there from ride shares, to car shares, to public transit. Don’t under estimate the value of your own two feet either.

Cars are a huge cost and a waste of money. Even if you own them outright, you still have to pay monthly insurance and annual registration fees. The average cost of insurance varies by region. Taken as a whole, you are likely going to spend over $1000/year. Think about what you can do with this extra cash!

Additionally, the spot you park your car (for an average 23 hours per day) is extremely valuable in urban centers where space is limited. Individual parking spots can go for as much as $375/month in San Francisco.

Let’s say you live in a less expensive city, I bet you could still get $100/month, or $1,200/year! Draft up a contract and rent it out!

If you are unable to give up your car, put it to use and drive for Lyft as a Side Hustle!

8. Automate your savings

Hide your money (from yourself)! Setup automatic saving/investment plans. Set it and forget it!

If you have an employer sponsored retirement plan and match, put as much as you can pre-tax/pre-paycheck. This is an amazing opportunity to invest in your future.Plus, it can be a helpful mental game. Since it’s taken out before you receive your paycheck, it’s easier to swallow.

Additionally, I have a separate savings account that I put 10% of my paycheck into. I set this up with the HR department at work. They put 90% into my checking account with one bank, and 10% into a savings account with another bank. I purposely do not have access to savings account. I gave all my information to my partner so that I cannot touch it.

Acorns is also a good way to automate savings/investing. It will take pennies to your dollar after each purchase and save, or invest. Overtime, the pennies add up, but is not noticeable in realtime. 

9. Rethink your entertainment needs

Do you really need to go out to the trendiest bar, or 3-day music festival? This money management tip is here to remind you to take a step back and think about ways you can have fun with friends, without blowing all your money on a Friday night.

City walks are fun, public spaces can be utilized, and what about pinball!?Table top arcades can offer you hours of entertainment at a relatively small price. This tip comes straight to you from Your Money Geek!

I love Pinball, BTW.

10. Always take money management into your own hands

First, it is your responsibility to be responsible with your money.

Second, no one can do a better job managing your money than you.

Even if you are going a million miles an hour, hustling, and raking in the cash, it is always important to stop, take a beat, and analyze your cash flow.

There are so many tools to help you analyze your spending data. Take a moment, look at your financial picture, and figure out ways to reduce wasteful spending.

11. Marry the right person!

Divorce can be costly. I’ll add that weddings can be costly too! Rachael and I are currently planning our wedding. If you live in an expensive city, planning an affordable wedding is challenging!

We do not want to start off a marriage in debt (I am certainly marrying the right person, btw!).

RELATED POST: Tips to reduce wedding costs

12. Reduce subscriptions!

You don’t need to pay for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon video, Spotify, Pandora, Blue Apron and every other service under the sun. Pick a few of your favorites and let go of the others. Those small monthly fees will add up quickly!

If you are living with a roommate, plan to split some costs.

Just the other day a family member asked me to join his military phone plan to help reduce everyones costs. This would save me $20/month.

Think outside the box!

13. Never stop shopping around for better prices

Do not settle! This also mean you have to be flexible.

Without warning, your internet costs can go up. And so can many other daily items. Each year AT&T increases my monthly internet subscription by $10 without warning. So, every year, I call customer service to request a cancellation of my account so that I can go elsewhere. For the past three years, they have always agreed to reduce payments back to my initial rate.

Just the other day I realized my favorite sandwich shop increased their prices. I found a new shop that fits my budget.

A little bit of effort to find the right price can add up over the long run.

14. Cook dinner more often!

The average kitchen is around 75 sq ft. My home is only 700 sq ft, and runs me over $2,500/month.

That means I am paying over $268/month for my kitchen. It’s time to start making better use of this valuable space!

How often do you cook your kitchen? How often do you eat out?

I challenge you to get more for your money and make dinner in your costly kitchen more often!

Invite your friends over!

I suppose the alternative is to repurpose this valuable space…

15. Escape the city

City living, while absolutely incredible and enchanting, is competitive and consuming.

It is important to step back, analyze your lifestyle, and re-center yourself. A walk in the woods, a visit with the family, or a night under the stars can really help put things into focus.

Focus on what you need, versus want. With finances, this is a very important distinction. This will help you avoid mistakes that are a waste of money.

Best Money Management Apps

Acorns: Save a little bit each day! These small cash roundups are invested for your future!

Drop: It won’t make you rich but it is super passive and let’s you earn an the equivalent of an extra 1-2% cash back automatically at stores like Target, Starbucks, Safeway, and Trader Joe’s.

Goodbudget: Personal and household envelop budgeting system. Dedicate a set amount of money to specific things each month.

Groupon: Anytime Michael from your Money Geek heads into a new city, he checks Groupon for deals!

Fundrise: A great alternative to enter into the real estate market for only $500!  8-11% expected annual return.

Ibotta: Get cash back! Ibotta pays you real cash money whenever, wherever you shop. Better than a coupon!

Mint: Great for budgeting, cash flow tracking. You can also set up fraud alerts.

Microsoft Excel: Old school baby! Simple, straight forward. You are in control, not an online app.

Personal Capital: Best for net-worth tracking, investment performance review, retirement planning.

Quicken:  Personal finance management tool. J.D. loves the 2007 version because he is in complete control of the info that’s entered. It’s not “automagically” categorized by computers. He’s not subjected to ads. Lastly, he’s not at the mercy of some arbitrary interface.

Robinhood: individual stocks, options or ETFs, and cryptos, 100% commission-free. Yes, you read that correctly, Robinhood does not charge brokerage fees.

SoFi: High interest student loans? SoFI aims to reduce your interest rate and total amount you spend over the lifetime of the loan.

Tiller: The only service that automatically consolidates your daily financial transactions into Google Sheets.

Wealthfront is a one of the most well established automated investment service firms on the market. Their goal is to help your money grow with by reducing risk, taxes, and fees.

Recommended Personal Finance Blogs With Rad Money Management Tips

Our experts read A LOT! The following list is a compilation of their responses. For clarity, I did not include blogs that we are featuring in this post, however, many of our featured experts recommended each other!

See the concluding section below to find out what blogs our personal finance experts like to read!

Bitches Get Riches	AccidentalFIRE
Clever Dude	The Luxe Strategist
Curbed LA	Four Pillar Freedom
Rockstar Finance	Budgets Are Sexy
Root of Good	Club Thrifty
DINKS Finance	Financial Samurai
Millennial Revolution	Mr. Crazy Kicks
Mr. Money Mustache	Oh My Dollar
Niche Pursuits	Our Next Life
Retire By 45	Smart Passive Income

Personal Finance Expert Roundup Responses (IN FULL)

AcceleratedFI

1. What are your best money management tips to help millennials save money in expensive cities?

I would try to buy a multi unit building like a duplex or triplex and live in 1 unit while renting the others out. You can get some mortgages that only require 3.5% down payment as long as you live there so you could have the tenants cover your entire mortgage payment and maybe end up making some money each month while you build equity.

2. What is your favorite money app (saving, tracking, or investing) and why?

I LOVE Mint.com for budgeting and Personal Capital for tracking my retirement accounts. Mint is super convenient because it automatically imports all of the transactions and usually gets them into the right category. It’s also nice to get alerts when I’m over budget in a category or when there’s a large transaction in my account. I’ve had my credit card used fraudulently a couple of times so the Mint alerts are super helpful to find out ASAP when there’s an issue.

3. What is your favorite blog to read these days?

Since I’m focused on side hustles/building websites, the main blogs I follow are Cloudliving.com, Authorityhacker.com, Viperchill.com, and Rankxl.com for SEO and money making ideas. On the personal finance side I like to read Mr Money Mustache (of course),Root of Good, and Rockstar Finance. I read the Rockstar Finance newsletter everyday and almost always find 1 or 2 interesting articles to check out.

Is Buy It For Life a good idea or a waste of money?https://t.co/44pTyeDeTE pic.twitter.com/Hzah74NmAa

— Jim (@AcceleratedFI) April 11, 2018

DiverseFI

1. What are your best money management tips to help millennials save in expensive cities?

Always manage your own money.  No one will pay as close attention. If you are going to get married, marry the right person.  They don’t need to share all the same values, but make sure you want to spend your life with them.  Nothing saps wealth as much as divorce.

2. What is your favorite money app (saving, tracking, or investing) and why?

Mint: really good for budgetingPersonal Capital: pulls in investments from multiple places and helps aggregate

3. What is your favorite blog to read these days?

There are so many. I really like accidentalfire.com.

Dollars and Sense LA

1. What are your best money management tips to help millennials save money in expensive cities?

Automation: Automatically transfer at least 10% of take-home pay to a savings amount every pay period.

2. What is your favorite money app (saving, tracking, or investing) and why?

Mint: Mint is a powerful tool for two reasons. First, It aggregates and automates spending tracking across all accounts (checking, savings, mortgage, 401k, investments and etc). Second, it helps establish a baseline budget. With Mint, one can easily identify the monthly average for each spending category (such as food, utilities, and etc) with the most recent 6 months or 1 year data.

Get Rich Slowly

1. What are your best money management tips to help millennials save in expensive cities?

My best tip to help millennials save money in expensive cities? Move to a less expensive city. Okay, okay, that’s a little facetious. (But only a little.)

The truth is that YOUR HOUSING COSTS ARE THE SINGLE BIGGEST DRAG ON YOUR BUDGET. They are for the average American, anyhow. And if you’re living in an expensive city, this probably all the more true.

If you’re in a place with a high cost of living and you don’t have to be, then get out. That said, there are plenty of people who have to live in New York or San Francisco or other expensive towns. I get it. If you’re one of them, and you’re also somebody who wants to get ahead financially, then you’re going to have to make some sacrifices.

That means deliberately choosing to live like a college student for a few years (maybe even a decade) so that you can maintain a big gap between what you earn and what you spend. The young folks I know who get ahead here in Portland do just that. They rent basement rooms or live with tons of roommates. Millennials opt to bike or take the bus instead of owning a car. They don’t eat out and buy their clothing at thrift stores.

Over the past twelve years, I’ve watched as the young adults who chose frugality over fun have managed to build wealth while those who chose to live more lavish lifestyles are now…stuck in the same place they were. And they have no savings to show for it. Seriously, though: If you’re in an expensive city and you have a way to get out, then do it. This is ESPECIALLY true if you have a location-independent job. If you’re done remote editing for a publisher, for instance, there’s NO reason you should be living in the San Jose instead of South Dakota.

2. What is your favorite money app (saving, tracking, or investing) and why?

Believe it or not, my favorite money app is Quicken 2007 for Mac. Yes, that’s right. I use an outdate, unsupported piece of software released in 2006 to track my money. Why? Because I’m in complete control of the info that’s entered. It’s not “automagically” categorized by computers. I’m not subjected to ads. I’m not at the mercy of some arbitrary interface.

I am old — almost 50! — and I like that Quicken 2007 resembles a checkbook register. (Like most people my age, I grew up using checks, and that’s a model I know.) I like that I enter my transactions one by one MANUALLY. (There are options to download transactions, but they don’t really work well.) All of this helps me be more aware of my money.

I’ve used modern services like YNAB and Personal Capital, and I think they’re great (especially YNAB). But they also tend to remove the user from the data. Unless you comb through your transaction list, you’re never really aware of where it’s all going. I think that’s problematic for many folks, especially young people.

3. What is your favorite blog to read these days?

I subscribe to several hundred blogs via Feedly, so I scan the headlines every day. While everyone is doing great work out there, honestly there’s a lot of sameness to it all. I could show you an article from Blog X and you’d have no way to tell it didn’t come from Blog Y or Blog Z. It all sounds the same. Because of this, I like blogs with strong voices.

Everyone loves Mr. Money Mustache, and so do I. I also like Financial Samurai. But my favorites right now? I like three: Four Pillar Freedom (http://www.fourpillarfreedom.com/), The Luxe Strategist (http://www.theluxestrategist.com/), and ESPECIALLY Bitches Get Riches (http://www.bitchesgetriches.com/). Bitches Get Riches is so fantastic, in fact, that I’m currently sending the authors $50 per month via Patreon. I’ve never supported anyone by Patreon before!

Making Sense of Cents

1. What are your best money management tips to help millennials save money in expensive cities?

One of the ways to save money would be to get a roommate. Splitting a slightly bigger apartment with at least one other person is usually cheaper than having a one bedroom or a studio apartment just for yourself. It seems like so many people are anti-roommate, but it can be a great way to significantly cut back on your living expenses! When me and my husband first bought our first home at the age of 20, we had a few roommates come in. This helped us to save more money.

2. What is your favorite money app (saving, tracking, or investing) and why? 

My favorite financial app is definitely Personal Capital. It’s a great way to check your financial situation and monitor what/how you’re doing.

3. What is your favorite blog to read these days?

I have a lot of favorites! I really enjoy Our Next Life, Go Curry Cracker, Gone With The Wynns, and others.

We would suggest bike riding, ridesharing, and even public transportation to avoid more debt (through auto loans). Also, try to find a way to split the cost of something with someone (i.e. get a roommate, dinner buddy, etc.).

2. What is your favorite money app (saving, tracking, or investing) and why? 

We love Acorns! It makes it so easy to invest your change (literally).

3. What is your favorite blog to read these days?

On top of Saving Advice, we like to stay up-to-date on a lot of different personal finance blogs like DINKS Finance, Clever Dude, Budgets Are Sexy, among others.

Side Hustle Nation

The Financial Journey Man

1. What are your best money management tips to help millennials save in expensive cities?

Try to find an apartment in a rent controlled district. They are hard to find, but are out there.

2. What is your favorite money app (saving, tracking, or investing) and why? 

Personal Capital

3. What is your favorite blog to read these days?

Rockstar Finance because I am able to keep up with all of the best personal finance blogs.

Wallet Hacks